Screams. That's all Mohana could think about. She couldn't get them out of her head. The wretched cries. The moaning. The wailing. Those guttural shrieks of dire fear. Mohana, a Hindu name which means "enchanting, bewitching". How mortifying. The whole nightmarish scenario. It reminded her of that hideous nursery rhyme. How did that loathsome lullaby go? (Hush little baby don't say a word, Daddy's gonna buy you a Mocking Bird, and if that Mocking Bird won't sing, Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring)."The Mocking Bird didn't sing.", she mumbled to herself through dry, chapped lips as a tear found its way through the tiny slit of her trembling and closed eyelids. The tear would be salty, even in the dead of a still summer night, even if nobody tasted it. It would trickle down the side of her face, making its way into the tangled strands of her long, dark hair. Actually, her hair was light red. A strawberry blond they used to call her, but then, after it happened, she dyed her hair dark. First, purple in honor of her broken heart, then midnight black to match her perpetual mourning. The funeral was hers and the burial was today. Everyday. Mohana, the little strawberry blond princess died and was buried every day since that fatal night when she began to awaken to the horrid truth for the first time in her fairytale princess life. Her father had marched her down the aisle, so full of pride like a peacock strutting the glory of his plumage along side the royal train of her bridal gown. Her mother and her mother~in~law~to~be lighting the candles. The bridegroom, Brent Lawson, in a brown tuxedo with a pink vest and bow tie, waiting for her at the altar. A kiss, a bouquet, a honeymoon in the Caribbean. Then that night. That fateful night when she had prepared that special dinner for him, her husband, her new husband, the first and only husband that Mohana was to ever have. A special surprise dinner to celebrate their first night in their new home together. A big, white mansion, the loving wedding gift from her wealthy grandmother, complete with wrap around, colonnaded portico and gated white picket fence. Brent would be home from work soon. His first day at the Firm as a married man. She remembers that she had given face to a gentle smile at the thought of the congratulations, and, no doubt, some sporty heckling from his bachelor partners that Brent would have received that day. All in good fun. She would be informed of all the gossip because her best girl~friend and Maid of Honor, Kate Lebowitz, was receptionist at the Firm. Kate would tell her everything that happened at the offices that day. Then the first call came in. It was Brent's voice, "I'll be a little late, angel, one of our client's from Pensacola has brought an addendum over. We're gonna cover it in preliminary this evening. Shouldn't be more than an hour though, so I'll see you by eight, nine at the latest." A quick "I love you, bye." and the phone line clicked dead. Angel. At the memory of this, she tried to laugh but a cough, similar to a gag, got in the way and another tear trailed its way to her hairline. He always called her angel. That was one of his natural charms. He was irresistible in that way. In so many ways when she fell in love with him. That night she had tried not to get upset. After all, it was a surprise celebration dinner. Brent had no way of knowing that she had made his favorite dish, chicken cordon blue, for his first supper in their new home together. "Oh well", she thought, "work comes before play." The salads would be alright in the fridge and she could place the entree` in the oven to stay warm until he got home, to his new home with her. Brent was fortunate to have such a perfect start to his career. He worked hard at University and had graduated summa cum laude, first in his class, from the Florida State College of Engineering, continuing for another year and a half to earn his Master's. This and the strings her father had pulled on his behalf landed him a lucrative position with the most prestigious civil engineering firm in Panama City. Brent's brother, Brandon, an import dealer at a local lot, helped him make a down payment on his dream car, a Jaguar XJ8. Mohana was happy for her successful husband Brent. She would blow out the candles for now and sit at her end of the table admiring the china, the crystal, the silver and the flowers she had gathered from the garden and placed in a nineteenth century porcelain vase as a centerpiece. Such romantic place settings just for two and how many newlyweds had a pure white silk table cloth? She had even chilled a bottle of Dom. Mohana smiled again as she recalled the fun she had at their wedding teaching Brent to hold a champagne glass by its stem to insure the champagne wasn't being warmed by an all embracing hand. How delightful their first night in their new home as husband and wife was going to be in spite of Brent having to work late. Mohana had entered into a sweet reverie imagining how she would make love to Brent that night, the soft satin sheets luxuriously surrounding them in their super~soft king size bed. Mohana had gotten excited, anticipating marital bliss, but then the second call of that fateful night came in, the one with a Florida Highway Patrolman on the other end of the line. Oh, they were gonna be ok, the man and the woman in the XJ8 who had been in the auto accident, fender bender really, at the Blue Lagoon motel involving an SUV driven by a retiree from out of town. The retiree and his wife hadn't sustained any injuries, but the couple in the Jag had. Those airbags really blast out of there, you know. A short ambulance ride to the hospital is all that would be required for the two of them. Just to make sure their injuries were only minor. "Couple?" Mohana asked the patrolman, "Man and woman? The two of them?"The patrolman spoke in a cold, matter~of~fact voice and Mohana could visualize him referencing his written report "Yes, your husband and his passenger, a miss Lebowitz." was the toneless answer.Without thinking, Mohana quickly shouted back into the phone receiver, "Kate Lebowitz?""Yes ma'am, a miss Kate Lebowitz. I've got a lot of work to do, ma'am, so I'm gonna have to let you go. If you would like to see your husband, they are taking them to Bay Medical Center downtown.""A~a~alright officer, th~thank you." Her voice was shaking, trilling like a Mocking Bird in the morning. Unconscious of what she was doing, Mohana held her engagement ring up to the light to see if it was shining. Still holding her ring finger toward the light with eyes wide and rambling, she had to make three attempts in order to hook the telephone handset back into the charger on the kitchen counter. Like fire~hot, searing, molten lava the meaning of the patrolman's call began to become clear to her, boiling her skin from underneath and making spots appear before her eyes. She staggered back into the formal dining room, bracing herself against the mahogany dining table which she had spent the entire afternoon setting for the romantic celebration dinner that her and her new husband were to have shared together during their first night in their new home. She dropped to the shiny, wood floor hard on her hind quarter, haplessly dragging the silken tablecloth and the ornate place settings off the table. Those dainty dishes came crashing down with her, shattering into a hundred thousand pieces and shards all around her. The flower vase tumbled, bounced and broke, water running across the flat floor as if poured from a mop bucket. In such a state of shock was she that she didn't even feel it as the point of a serrated knife nicked the back of her hand causing a bright blot of crimson blood to drip down over her fingers, staining the pure white of the silken tablecloth with its unheeded flow. Mohana began to feel sick. She began to feel violently nauseous, as if she would heave her very intestines out into her lap. Gripping the silk with both hands she wadded it in fistfuls. Drawing a section taut, she placed it between her teeth. Tightly she pulled the cloth straight down on either side of her mouth, biting viciously into the fabric and staring blankly with wild, bulging eyes through the clear glass of the French doors that led out onto the patio. Mohana's whole body began to quiver. Darkness lay beyond those French doors. A hideous darkness full of treachery and deceit. She felt a scream begin to well up from deep inside her. Convulsing with anger, confusion and fear she howled shrill cry after shrill cry out of a mouth twitching with writhing internal pain. Her shrieks of emotional desecration echoed through the empty house with a haunting helplessness which told the sullen and shabby tale of a virgin broken heart. Trembling in solitary horror she began to remember her childhood playhouse. Those boiled, skinless new potatoes covered in black pepper. The red, beeswax candles. The chants. The scrolls hidden in the secret chest. The mystical etchings burnt into the pinewood walls. She knew Magic. She knew Wicca. She knew Witchcraft. Mohana the enchanting. Mohana the bewitching. Now the real horror would begin.

*~*~*~ Chapter One ~*~*~*

*~*~*~ The Little Girl ~*~*~*

It was a perfect day. The sun was shining, the sky was a thoughtful cerulean and a few small, puffy clouds drifted aimlessly across the blue vista like snow white cotton candy floating in the afternoon breeze. The babysitter, a remarkably beautiful, effeminate adolescent, with creamy skin, long raven hair, dark gypsy eyes and carrying a rainbow backpack over one shoulder, pulled a little red wagon. Riding happily along in the Radio Flyer was a pretty little girl, equally fair skinned named Mohana Voorloche. The little girl, blessed with the cutest strawberry blond curls of ultra~fine hair which flitted about her tiny shoulders, had just celebrated her third birthday and her amazing and most favorite birthday present was the little red wagon which now carried her down the edge of the street by the power of her babysitter's pull. A huge, long charcoal gray sedan with a low murmuring engine and tinted windows slowly drove by. The babysitter, Trudy Mars, was sweet sixteen and a distant relative who lived with her mother and older sister, Jan, five houses down Trinity Street from Mohana. Trudy's father had died from cancer eating away at his lungs at the young age of fifty, but Mohana's mother and father were both alive and well. As the babysitter pulled the handle of the little red wagon rolling it and its happy passenger down the edge of Trinity Street past the colorful mailboxes, some of them encased in brick fortresses, Mohana sang a happy song of her own composition. A frolicking melody kept in rhythm by the sound of loose gravel from the asphalt pavement grinding and popping under the black, plastic wagon wheels. White rims capped with a red hub cover reminiscent of an ice cream with a cherry on top. The wagon rolled up the Voorloche family driveway. There was a pause in Mohana's serenade as the babysitter stopped to unlatch the gate of the wooden privacy fence. Gently she pulled the little red wagon through, closing the gate after. When the babysitter resumed travel pulling the little red wagon through the back yard, Mohana's toddling voice again sang out her unintelligible lyrics. Mohana sang in a language all her own, as very young children often do. The babysitter understood the child's song. With a knowing smile on her face, the babysitter clearly deciphered the little girl's limerick. The well built playhouse sat in the farthest corner of the Voorloche backyard. It was a picturesque miniature of one of those nostalgic chalets found in the Swiss Alps and was constructed of long leaf pine. A noble wood of character and distinction. An ancient wood imbued with esoteric connotations fit for any ritualistic purposes. The playhouse emitted the magic of the pine. The babysitter could feel its warm glow as they approached. Bouncing on her blanket as the little red wagon bumped over the clumps of green grass, the little girl also sensed the power of the playhouse and she began to sing louder, with more feeling.The babysitter parked the little red wagon in front of the toy porch which fronted the dainty pine playhouse, turned to Mohana and admired her momentarily as the little girl sang her secretive song. The little girl continued singing as the babysitter bent over and lovingly lifted the red haired canary and her blanket from the Radio Flyer. Placing the precious melodic cargo on the playhouse front porch, the babysitter opened the playhouse door and entered. Mohana followed in full chorus. The window mounted air conditioner was then switched on, for pleasant as the atmosphere of Northwest Florida is in April, an enclosed chamber can become quite stuffy and warm. The stick of cinnamon hanging in front of the air conditioner vents began to gyrate and its pleasant aroma filled the magical playhouse. Letting her backpack slide gracefully from over her shoulder, Trudy the babysitter unzipped the rainbow pouch and began placing its contents on the playhouse tea~party table. Mohana, still warbling her mystical melody, had taken her seat at the tea~party table opposite Trudy. The babysitter removed from the rainbow backpack a Ouija Board, an old vellum scroll, five red beeswax candles, a lock of someone's hair, a festoon of spider's web wrapped around a Q~tip, 3 dried rose petals, a narrow Tupperware container filled with boiled, skinless new~potatoes completely covered in black pepper and a thermos of chilled cherry~red Kool~aid. Trudy poured a plastic teacup adorned in teeny floral motifs full of the cherry~red Kool~aid for Mohana and aristocratically passed it to the little girl who now ceased her song to taste her "tea". The little girl took the teacup with both hands and stared into the bright, red liquid. Trudy then unrolled the old vellum scroll and placed it on the tea~table keeping it open by placing a fist sized stone on each of its four corners. The vellum was inscribed with Crescent Moons, Ankhs, Pentagrams and other arcane symbolism of the Occult. Trudy continued ceremoniously placing the Pagan ritualistic implements in precise magical arrangement around the tea~table, talking to Mohana while she did so."You will see, my dear little Mohana, as you grow, that most people are brainwashed by the so~called scriptures and other mass media to fight amongst themselves all the time. They are unwittingly induced into violent and unproductive behavioral patterns by a theater of melodrama in the guise of Good versus Evil. For example, many in our part of the world are conned by such slogans as join the Army of God in the Fight Against Evil. In this way, they are tricked into a constant state of fear and bellicosity. So continuously are they encouraged to make war until peaceful living becomes foreign to them. Make war against what? The threat against their person is a veiled and unqualified threat indeed. The very word "scripture" is a euphemism which is used to give the illusion of credibility to Biblical propaganda. In this way, peace has become such a strange and unfamiliar concept that people don't know what to do with it. Peace makes them feel uncomfortable. They are conditioned like Pavlov's Dog. Only, instead of being conditioned to salivate when a bell rings, people are conditioned into the habit of fighting all the time. What they don't realize is that there's nothing against which to fight. There is no Army of God and there is no Fight Against Evil. They are shadow boxing. They are zealots to their own demise. Their fanaticism is self defeating. Round and round they go, battling a nonexistent opponent, troubling themselves over nothing from cradle to grave. Wasting their life force. Dissipating their magical energies instead of achieving harmony with the cosmos so that they may ascend to a better life. The wealthy elite are vampires, bloodsuckers feeding off the life force of commoners, beguiling the working class with the effervescent sparkle of Capitalism. Charming the regular folk with promises of wealth world without end, luring them to tilt back their heads and lay open their soft throats to the sharp, hungry fangs of the Captains of Industry."

During the babysitter's expounding, Mohana sat quietly sipping her Kool~aid, mildly amused and very attentive to every word. "But then again," Trudy continued, "the commoners are vampires themselves. Cannibals, really. Feeding off of each other's greed. Don't they realize that they themselves kill each other for no just reason? They also slaughter other living creatures for food. They kill rabbits, deer, cows, sheep, goats, chickens. People kill living, breathing organisms and devour their bloody flesh. People are the Devil. People are monsters. If they want to see Evil, real Evil, all they have to do is look in the mirror. In other religious cults, Buddhism for example, the followers simply sit down and do nothing. Peace isn't lack of forward motion. Peace is progress. Peace is progress without violence and without needless, wasteful sacrifice of life. Mohana, my dear, you have been born into a world of barbarians and zombies. You are a witch, a sorceress, a child of nature, and nature, my precious Mohana, is a process of becoming. One cannot become if one destroys oneself in fruitless conflict. One cannot become if one meditates ones self into nothingness. That birthmark behind your left ear, the raven~shadow. You are a true possessor of Witchcraft, Mohana my love, and I shall help guide you toward greater command of your Witchcraft."The little girl burped and nodded her head in acquiescence. The birthmark behind her left ear began to grow warm. A green aura surrounded her tender neck and the raven~shadow moved its wings. "You understand the words I am saying to you at the intuitive level now, Mohana. Like an instinct, you know what I am telling you. When you are older, my words will rise from your subconscious mind and you shall know them in the clear light of day and they will help you discover other truths which will carry you through the dark shadows of night. Good and Evil are like matter, they are neither created nor destroyed. You can, however, manipulate both Good and Evil to your advantage. Yes, my little Mohana, I shall teach you all that I know and as you grow, you shall find out greater truths, stronger Magic. You are a natural witch, Mohana. Ones like you come along once every seventh generation. On occasion a child will inherit the Craft directly from a parent, it may fall to a grandchild or a niece or nephew, but this is rare. Your surname, Voorloche, is the ancient Scandinavian word for Warlock and Mohana is a Hindu name which means enchanting; bewitching". Now the sacred rites began. Mohana was initiated into secrets as old as Earth. Taught to her were the powers of the elementals and the rudimentary precepts of the spell, the hex and the incantation. Seances, channeling, divination; the proper magical steps for making candles, besoms and corn dollies. Mohana was given her first Scrying mirror. Trudy the babysitter read to Mohana the young, natural Witch from Malleus Maleficarum, the Witches Hammer, so that Mohana would be armed with the knowledge of how to cleverly evade detection thereby avoiding persecution and possible prosecution for practising Witchcraft. Mohana heard of the horrors of Witch hunts. She listened to verbatim transcripts of the legal documents from the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, which inculcated within her an instinctive mistrust for those hypocritical bigots who despise the wielders of magic. The bigots don't understand magic, Mohana learned, and they fear what they don't understand. Fear leads to suspicion; suspicion to hatred and hatred to violence. All magic and the ancient ways of the Witch were revealed to Mohana and she excelled in her studies. Conjuring spirits and obtaining information from ghosts became one of Mohana's favorite games. Day and night the beeswax candles burned. Day and night the young Witch Mohana learned. As the days turned to weeks, the weeks to months and the months to years, no adult would have ever guessed or believed what cryptic dark Masses took place in that well constructed, magical pine playhouse in a normal backyard in the heart of Suburbia.

Yvette's ~*

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